User interaction with modern computing devices is largely application-focused. A user installs an application on the computing device. The application is capable of performing various tasks. Once installed, the user is able to interact with the application to accomplish those tasks. In the case of a computing device with a touchscreen, the dominant form of user interaction is often referred to as “find and tap.” “Find and tap” refers to the scenario in which a user navigates through the graphical user interface (GUI) of the application to find needed controls and taps or otherwise selects the controls to initiate commands. Since many tasks require multiple steps to complete, a user often spends a substantial amount of time navigating the GUI of the application in order to accomplish the task at hand.
In many cases, users perform more complex tasks using multiple different applications and/or using multiple different devices. When applied across applications and/or devices, the “find and tap” methodology further increases the amount of time users spend navigating the GUIs of applications. In other cases, a user may have a general idea to engage in some activity at a later time without fully conceiving or defining the task to be performed. Capturing this intent is difficult given the dominance of find and tap interaction in modern computing devices which presumes that a task is fully conceived or completely defined from the start.